SANTA ANA, Calif. — The probable mastermind in the brazen escape of three inmates from a California jail had help from a woman whose English classes he was taking while locked up, authorities allege.
Escapee Hussein Nayeri, 37, came to know Nooshafarin Ravaghi, 44, during an English as a second language course inside the Orange County jail. Beyond that, there was "some type of relationship that developed between the two," sheriff's spokesman Jeff Hallock said.
That relationship led to her helping him and the others to break out of the jail nearly a week ago, which led to her arrest on Thursday, Hallock said.
Nayeri's past and sophistication among other factors led Sheriff Sandra Hutchens to tag him as probably the mastermind of last Friday's elaborate escape. The prosecutor in the kidnapping and torture case against him was so alarmed by his escape she described him in an interview with a reporter as a Hannibal Lecter, the sadistic killer in "The Silence of the Lambs."
Nayeri and two other inmates, 43-year-old Bac Duong and 20-year-old Jonathan Tieu, sawed through a metal grate over a plumbing tunnel and sliced through more metal and rebar to reach an unguarded section of roof, where they rappelled down with bed linens, authorities said.
Their need for strong tools to cut their way out had led to investigators believing they must have had help, the sheriff said. Ravaghi, the teacher, denied providing the men those tools, but officials say her assistance included providing them with Google maps to plot an escape route, and they're investigating how deep her role went.
Duong stole a van the day after the escape after taking it for a test drive in the only reported sighting of the men since the breakout, and investigators believe the three men may be traveling while living out of the back of the white GMC Savana, Hallock said.
Nayeri's attorney, Salvatore Ciulla, did not return a request for comment, and authorities did not know Thursday whether Ravaghi has yet obtained an attorney.